'Grinding on': Elections office continues to sort through ballots; final results likely more than a week away

With the outcomes of a few local races still hanging in the balance 11 days after Election Day, the Humboldt County Elections Office continues to have its hands full with post-election audits and final results remain but a proverbial speck on the horizon.

"We're really grinding on this as hard and as fast as we can," Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich said Friday. "But, accuracy over speed. We want to do it once and do it right."

There is a hard deadline looming. The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors must certify the election results at its Nov. 30 meeting, which will kick off a five-day period in which candidates or members of the public can challenge the results or demand a recount.

For Crnich and elections officials in the state's other 57 counties, a lot of work sits between now and the end of the month.

"Election Day has come and gone, but for elections officials across California who must provide complete and accurate results, the election truly does not end until Nov. 30," California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said in a press release.

Bowen pointed out that, before an election is certified, officials must audit all materials returned from the polls to account for all ballots, verify signatures on vote-by-mail ballots, research provisional ballots, remake ballots that can't be counted by the machines, conduct hand counts for qualified write-in candidates and manually audit 100 percent of the ballots from 1 percent of their county's precincts.

It also seems worth noting that, according to Bowen's press secretary Shannan Velayas, there is no longer a threshold for an automatic recount in California. A law that had required a recount in any race separated by less than one half of 1 percent of the vote was allowed to sunset in 2009. Now, any voter or candidate can call for a recount, but they are then saddled with paying for it.

In Humboldt, Crnich said elections staff is still working through the process of auditing materials returned from the polls and updating voter histories, which she said need to be completed before the county can even begin to sort through the almost 13,000 ballots that remain to be counted. Crnich said she's hopeful those processes will be completed by the end of next week, at which point staff will be able to begin verifying signatures on the outstanding vote-by-mail ballots, sorting them and counting them. By next Friday, she said, she hopes to be able to provide a breakdown of how many ballots are outstanding in each precinct, but warned, "that may be optimistic."

With several local races separated by fewer than 1,000 votes, some candidates are likely sitting on edge waiting for the final numbers, or at least a breakdown of how many votes are in play in each race.

Crnich said that once all the votes are counted, she will post a final update on the county's elections results web page. The Humboldt County Elections Transparency Project will also be posting ballot images online, Crnich said, adding that she hopes volunteers will have all the ballots scanned and be able to post ballot images online at the same time as the final results updates, allowing members of the public to sort the ballots and conduct manual recounts as they see fit prior to the Nov. 30 certification deadline.

But a lot of work remains between now and then. Crnich, who said she worked Veterans Day and plans to put in time at the office this weekend, said her staff is intent on getting its work done in time to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We'll run long shifts if we have to," she said. "I've got employees who don't want to be here for Thanksgiving, and I really don't want to be, either."